Why is Delaware Day no big deal? Because it celebrates a bunch of colonials sitting in the Golden Fleece in Dover, having a brief discussion, then voting for ratification, then hurrying home…. The timing of their decision would eventually lead 216 years later to Delaware having the first quarter minted in its honor… That was about it…

So why is Pearl Harbor a big deal? We got beat… Hey lets go down to the bar and celebrate that time Biff beat us up real bad as kids…

No, we celebrate Pearl Harbor Day because on that day, Republicans everywhere (except for the DuPont family) stopped being Republicans. The entire nation became Democrats, solidly behind FDR, committed to their government for its fulfilling of one task no matter what the cost….

Great things were accomplished because of Pearl Harbor… That is why we celebrate it… It proved the Republican philosophy that we should leave the world alone and just support our billionaires, to be wrong, and it stayed wrong for the next 53 years later… That time frame turned out to be America’s greatest, ever, btw… So it is worth that we celebrate Pearl Harbor Day…. It caused the disappearance of the Republican Party….

Fingers crossed that perhaps we will celebrate November 4, 2014 the same way?….. for the same thing? For getting rid of all influence by the Republican Party?….

(Note, to reader: I started this post in jest, but now it is scaring me exactly how closely similar the Republican Party was leading up to Pearl Harbor, as it is today..)

Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”… And then once we elect one, we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”

So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.

It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment…. If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012, would in one day become trivial….

And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….

Julius Cephus: Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington. The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before… Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper. It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch. Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations. They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.

Steve Newton: A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51 is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers. It is brilliant. It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause. By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read. Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered. Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing. Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law. Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware. His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future. We are already there. As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics. As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents. None can go to any other hospital. He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation. Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed. The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.

Ernest Lopez. If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man. Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden. Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district. A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him. He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious. A major billboard was put up to call him out. His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales. Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun. It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….

Cathy Cloutier: her vote allowed gays to marry. Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.

Bethany Hall Long: on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect. In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape. She went with the correct vote, over the easy one. As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.

Paul Baumbach: gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come. He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor. Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.

John Kowalko: also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant. In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be. Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed. The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.

Kim Williams; responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems. She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through…. She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied. The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways. Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….

Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment: I almost purposefully did not post this. Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned. Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of corporatizing public education. Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done… It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence. I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists. Well,… they are part of the play…….

Dan Short: Sometimes villains get noticed too. Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes… Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.

John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else. With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore. Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead. More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.

Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.

Amy Roe: a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate. Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace. Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before… The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it. Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.

Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…

Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron. Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”

Alan Levin: Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.

Jack Markell: had his hand in everything. He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover. He was behind SB 51 and HB 165. He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.

John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….

Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
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That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….

I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….

If an EMP went off right now, what would happen? Let’s say it was caused naturally, and not from an earthly application… Just stop for a second and imagine if in one split second, all electronics got fried…

What could you do? You would initially do just what you do when the power goes out. You would get up, open the door, look at all your neighbors opening the door looking back at you, say a few words, and go back into wait for the power to come on…

You might get suspicious when your cell phone wouldn’t turn on, or not being primed to consider what the possibilities were, you might just think your battery picked that interlude to die…. You might likewise get suspicious when your car wouldn’t show life. You might curse your luck that the power went off, your cellphone battery died, and your car now needs a new battery, all in the same afternoon… You couldn’t get a hold of anyone to help, and so you walk over to your neighbor. He’s out back trying to get his generator started. It won’t work either. He’s mad as hell and is taking it back to Lowes where he bought it.. and he finds his Ford Pickup battery has died too… Oh the terrible luck …

So you walk to the store and see no one is open, everything is temporarily closed until the power kicks back on….

Only it won’t come on… ever.. I mean ever… Well at least in your life time…

Why? simply put, every electrical component, every magnet, every fuse, every connector, will have to be replaced from your house to the nearest power plant. .. Even if somewhere a power plant opened, and produced, that would leak all over the country unless someone actually got up and cut the wires to keep that power from dissipating and becoming too weak to do any good…

So new power plants would have to be built. New wires strung, new transformers built, forget about the ones on the shelf for emergencies, they’re shot too. Everything would need to be rebuilt from scratch…

And we would have no access to the information that told us how to rebuild….

This is how civilizations disappear rather quickly.. They become so specialized, that no one can put everything back together. It mimics the Tower of Babel accounting.. “There once was a great civilization, that evaporated instantly” is how most scholars view the accounting of that story today…

To survive, you would have no heat.. unless you had either a fireplace of wood stove. Everything else is electrical unless your unit dates back before 1990…. You would have no transportation. You couldn’t buy a working car. The first cars to be made would have to be created from scratch, at a factory, that unfortunately had no power.

Your world would shrink to where you could walk. There would be no news, unless someone walked to tell you what they saw in Wilmington. And what someone from Philadelphia had told them when they had walked from there, and rumors that had been told from those who had walked from New York, and from New Jersey, and up south from Washington and Baltimore…

Was any of America working? NO one knew… Once a military fighter roared overhead, and it was the first sound heard since the event, and all raced outside to cheer… But that was it.. Hope was that someone, somewhere out there, was in charge, and was working to make our lives return to normal…

But years went by…. Most people moved from the cities. Many died of disease, and starvation, and life became involved of defending oneself and ones property from those that wanted to take it… To live, you really had to sell yourself to an Overlord, who was intimidating enough that no one moved into your neighborhood because of him.. Most of what you made, he took as payment for protecting you. It included your children.

The once great civilization, was erased. No one knew about Rome. No one knew about Babylon. No one knew about Greece… unless it was from the old Bibles kept in decorative cabinets. Some books existed, but most had been burned to keep warm that first winter…
Just like that… Our huge skyscrapers, began to fall, one by one, each time covering the streets with an overbearing dust cloud.

Nature began to reclaim her own. The ice caps grew back. The seas lowered. The flora and fauna multiplied as people perished. The children heard stories, about the world being round, and names like China and Japan that could be found on old artifacts. But, without any reinforcement, they gradually faded from all knowledge…

The question I want to raise is this. Is our education system as it stands now, capable of continuing civilization as we know it, in and if, such a natural event were to occur? Or non natural event?

Do we currently teach enough basics so anyone can build a computer, build a electronics kit, and repair cars, generators, home electrical appliances, were such an event to occur?

It is not hard; the hard part is that no one knows how to do it.

If everyone knew simple basic electricity, and how things worked, we’d have power in some places within a week, and withing three months, we’d be 50% back to normal. We would be back to normal within three years.

Our current educational system is teaching us the wrong things…. We are focused on the wrong items. We test for the wrong items. We do not teach the basic knowledge our life needs right now…

This knowledge is vital for national security. It needs to be taught to every man, woman, and child… 3 x 6 equaling 18 doesn’t do much.. Nor does Black History Month, or proper English Grammer, or American History, or Economics, or ………….

Our first grade needs to begin…. “Ok, kids…. this is a 1… this is a 0…… All of life revolves around those two numbers…”

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched as attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. .

And so the farce continues. The more mind-boggling its incarnations, the happier the US media are to cheer first one clown and then the next, elevating and then eliminating “frontrunners” in reliable news cycles of about 45 days.

Take Herman Cain, “businessman.” He sat out the first wave of sexual harassment claims against him by offering a peculiar argument: Most ladies he had encountered in his life, he said, had not complained.

In the most recent twist, a woman accused Cain of having carried on a 13-year affair with her. That, too, he tried to casually wave off, but now, under pressure, he says he wants to “reassess” his campaign.

If Cain indeed drops out, the campaign would lose its biggest caricature: He has been the most factually challenged of all these jesters.

As CEO of the “Godfather’s” pizza chain, Cain killed jobs — but now poses as the job-creator-in-chief. Meanwhile, he seems to lack basic economic know-how, let alone a rudimentary grasp of politics or geography. Libya confounds him. He does not believe that China is a nuclear power. And all other, slightly more complicated questions get a stock answer: “Nine-nine-nine!” Remember? That’s Cain’s tax reduction plan that would actually raise taxes for 84 percent of Americans.

Has any of that disrupted Cain’s popularity in the media or with his fan base? Far from it. Since Oct. 1, he has collected more than $9 million in campaign donations. Enough to plow through another onslaught of denouements.

We were round tabling this discussion when one person said… “What if the US just gave up after Pearl Harbor?”

Valid point.

Now I’m all for people speaking their mind. I’m all for supporting the majority. And like the founding fathers, I have implicit faith in the ability of the people to sort out our problems and separate wheat from the chaff… if not the first time, then definitely over time.

Most ordinary people I know have far more wisdom than any leader I’ve had the privilege to share conversation with. Therefore I believe in the sanctity of the people’s choice. If the people voted him in, he’s there for a reason.

But that’s only if the election was fair. If someone padded the ballot box, or switched vote totals, than obviously this premise wouldn’t apply for the very reason that the choice of the people was not the person who was actually representing them.

Mike was bushwhacked, sort of like the US was at Pearl Harbor or on 09/11…Reading his interview yesterday in the News Journal, one gets a sense that perhaps this was not a fair fight…. By election laws it was, and we all have to accept the primary results. However, if Mike doesn’t run as a write-in, he is putting himself in the same position as if the United States did nothing after Pearl Harbor or 9/11….

And with Mike, it is not about winning, although winning would be nice. It would be about whether good or evil triumphed. Polls say it’s Mike’s race to lose. He actually has enough money to send every voter a personal card telling them exactly how much he’s done for them, how that will soon change for the worse, and explain how to write in his name and send the evil perpetrators back to their cardboard boxes.

If Mike doesn’t do this…. exactly then, what is he saying to future generations of Americans? ? That we should just give up when hit from behind with a baseball bat? That it’s the American way to lay down and bend over? That being a man, is knowing when to run away and hide? That brutality and tastelessness are the new American Way? That perhaps Christine was right? Castle has no man pants on? That the wishes of Delawareans don’t matter; we’ll stop immediately and do what Californians tell us? That how we brush off defeat is a better mark of character, than coming back strong and punishing the evil that befell us?

And sentences keep coming one after another… the list keeps going on…

But if I were in Mike Castles shoes, and if it were me looking over the entire scene before me… I would have no choice but to say I’m in… Oh yes, I would wait till the last minute of September 30th to do so… and I would create a smoke cloud beforehand by pretending to roll over and let bygones be bygones… …. …. and from somewhere out of the fog, then overwhelmingly, I’d strike.

I wouldn’t hold back.. It’d be my last race, it would be the one I pulled all my stops for. Every person I’d ever helped would get a personal appeal from me. Unconditional Surrender would be our rallying cry, just like for the troops of WWII… Our goal would be not just to win, but destroy the O’Tea Party forever.

Ok, Hannity O’Tea Partiers: so you were secretly prepared and yes, you overran Poland, and yes, you then went on to incorporate the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway, and even surprised France pushing their ally Britain into the water… But this time, you went too far.. You’ve taken on the United States. You’ve pissed off someone five times your size. We will Normandize you, Elbetize you, Dresdenize you, give you a Kolnectomy, Rhineantipuovertize you, Remagenisque you, and even liposuctionize your Battle of the Bulge. We will Pattontize you, Bradleydice you, and Marshall you into a corner from where you can’t maneuver.. We will take average civilians and turn them into a fighting force the world has never seen…

We will do so for the honor of America.

What kind of an America? An America where truth wins out, where decency prevails, where honesty and hard work eventually win out over trickery, skulduggery, and political assassination. You wanted to play dirty? We’ll show you how it’s done… In doing so we will show the world that modernism prevails, that decent people still run America. that the “Boehner Bullshit” is just that. It’s time to show the world what we’ve known all along.. That in America, it’s the people who run politics..Not the Politics who run the people…..

I’d tell every Delawarean… Do yourself a favor… Turn off your TV’s.. You got a question? Call me or my staff directly! We’ll talk to you… try talking back to their commercials! Where will that get you?

Well anyway, if I were Castle, that’s exactly what I’d do. And I would do it selflessly, not to win, but to give Delawarean another alternative between a Democrat and our equivalent of the brown shirts of the Nazi Party.

Yes, if there is still good left in America, then Castle needs to run.
If the doesn’t, then the America that came back after Pearl Harbor……. is gone.

While researching the Pearl Harbor incident on its 67th anniversary, I came across this vignette. As most of us have heard all the major stories before, I decided to write upon this uneventful sliver of history…

The story goes like this. A large blip appeared to the northwest of the island, the largest blip either of the newly trained radar operators had ever seen… They called Kermit Tyler, the switchboard operator. Having heard Hawaiian music all night and having been told the radio station plays Hawaiian music so the planes can hone in on it….and knowing that a flight of large B17’s was en route, Kermit made the logical conclusion, and said: “Don’t worry about it.”

America’s destiny changed 50 minutes later…

But had he spoken up, little would have changed. There was no method to warn the remote airbases.. none of the ships could have been moved, and considering that no one ever expected the attack to come, one has to consider what the recriminations would be if all the planes had been scrambled, and general quarters sounded across the entire fleet, over a laughable fear that then turned out to be the B17’s after all?

Kermit Tyler was cleared by all boards of inquiry, including the U.S. Congress. His only crime, one constantly faced by every single person on this planet, was that he did not think big enough outside the box, and did not refer the incident or seek additional counsel..

To fight against that urge, explains a little why I continue to probe, pick apart, dissect, reformulate, investigate any incident that appears anomalous. Others may dismiss the evidence out of hand. We won’t know who is right until the anomaly has past…rectifying it with some preconceived notion. But if something falls hard into my lap, arbitrarily making me responsible for the welfare of others….. I do all I can… Unfortunately that’s just the way I’m wired…

I know. Sometimes you cluck your tongue and shake your head….and mutter that this intrepid soul has lost it…..

And sometimes you may be right; just don’t expect me to agree with you.

Otherwise, you may be just like the hero of this post…..and with all good intentions….restate his infamous words of historical significance to equal effect.